Road Trip Blues is back on track!

The plan was for the third book in The Roaring Road series, Road Trip Blues to publish by mid 2017, but the publish date was put on hold by a job change and a major relocation. Finally settled into much nicer living quarters, the Road Trip Dog and I are able to turn our full attention to publishing Road Trip Blues this month.

As with the first two books, Road Trip Blues will be available on Amazon Kindle and other ebook retailers. The paperback edition will publish within a day or two of the ebooks. Since our publisher, Road Trip Dog Publishing received a number of requests for audiobook editions, we are looking to have the Road Trip Blues audiobook follow as quickly as possible. Watch this blog for details.

The Road Trip Dog plays a larger role in Book 3, and another major change (improvement) is that Laure replaces Dan as narrator and first person storyteller. But do not fear, the action, danger, mayhem, sex and violence along with the introduction of a few new characters will keep our readers entertained. Most of the characters in Books 1 & 2 return, except for two who are off on a top secret government mission to Europe. They will return in Book 4. Sadly, we will lose a character in a murder most foul that is designed to frame Laure. Dastardly villains would like to see her pretty neck stretched, because in 1926 California the death penalty was carried out by the hangman's noose. Quite understandably, Laure and Dan want to prevent that from happening. A new and more evil - by an order of magnitude - mysterious villain will be pulling strings and plotting dirty deeds. Yes, mysterious, because our beta readers and editors could not guess who the villain is until it is revealed to Dan and Laure .

The highest technology available in the mid-1920s will be on display. Grasshopper telegraph, teletype machines, new aircraft, some radio communications capability, new Duesenberg automobiles with supercharged straight 8 motors, better recording techniques for music, and the impending technology of talking movies looms large. But the tried and true Pacific 4-6-2 oil-fired locomotive #3447 returns, and somehow Dan talks Laure into purchasing it! When Dan begins to sell the idea to Laure she asks him if he has "been smoking the mud pipe", a euphemism for smoking opium.

Part of the fun is that Dan and Laure begin their first movie production, Road Trip Blues, script written by Dan from their adventures of the previous year, dance numbers choreographed and performed by Laure and Louise Brooks. Suddenly the entire clan is caught up in moviemaking as Viktor tries out being a stunt actor and cute little Evelyn takes up station behind the movie camera and it turns out she is pretty damn good at it. The movie is a product of the successful prank played by Louise Brooks and Douglas Fairbanks at Dorothy Davenport's fundraiser for the Wallace Reid addiction treatment hospital. Hollywood, ever tricking the moviegoing public, is in turn tricked by amateurs into believing that Dan is a hotshot movie producer from Chicago who is relocating to California. Dan, with help from their new Hollywood friends, gets a fast education. Dan also learns how to 'ride the rails' and how to distill whiskey, both useful things to know when one is on the lam from the law and the mob. Dawn and Louise continue trying to seduce Dan while Buster Collier would like to get his hands on Laure again.

We think it will be a standard scene in each book of the series to have a bar smashup with the Swedes protecting Laure. She's not so sure she wants to go to a speakeasy with them, but somehow goes along and this time she has more fun taking on attackers with her chair leg club. Another standard scene will have Dan and Laure having drinks and dancing at The Green Mill in Chicago, one of Al Capone's establishments. This time they bring a policeman along with them.

But pay attention to the prologue. It appears at first as a story of how Laure, a nice Polish girl, got French first and middle names, but later in the story it becomes clear what that little bit of trivia brings to the plot. We like to plant innocuous little things that leave readers wondering "what was that all about?" and later they will see when the eventual results crash into the plot.
Johann Laesecke and the Road Trip Dog.